Jason Segel's Dispatches from Elsewhere is a really weird show that's in love with itself, but it is pretty to look at

Rolling Stone

"You know those days when you step out the door and it feels like the humidity has slapped you across the face, just in case there was any doubt how hot it was outside? That’s exactly how the quirkiness of AMC’s new series Dispatches From Elsewhere hits you," says Alan Sepinwall. "From the opening scene — a static shot of character actor Richard E. Grant, clad in a green checked jacket and black turtleneck, seated in front of an orange wall, staring at us in the audience for an eternity, before announcing, 'And now that I have your attention, I’ll begin' — Dispatches leaves no doubt that it will be self-consciously weird. The series needs normality like a fish needs a bicycle — and that’s even before three of its heroes try to use a party bike to chase down a limo that has Andre 3000 locked in the trunk. It’s a show so aggressively twee, Pushing Daisies creator Bryan Fuller would look at it and say, 'That’s a bit much.'"

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• Jason Segel turns the art piece into a distinctive fiction in Dispatches from Elsewhere: "AMC has a soft spot for the vibes and devices of classic American postmodern fiction," says Troy Patterson. "Lodge 49 put in two excellent seasons of homage to Thomas Pynchon, and now Dispatches is doing a John Barth thing, in the reflexivity and self-revision and exploratory parody of its storytelling. I started wondering if Segel, on some level, behind the scenes, is still in character as David Foster Wallace from The End of the Tour. Then I caught an obstructed view, on Fredwynn’s meaningfully curated bookshelf, of the spine of Infinite Jest.”
• Dispatches is more grating than great: "Dispatches From Elsewhere is about a scavenger hunt, but that scavenger hunt is also an all-too-obvious allegory," says Ben Travers. "As Peter, Simone, Janice, and Fredwynn put the clues together to find a path forward, both in the game and within themselves, viewers are meant to see how they can find similar meaning within their own lives, as well. Maybe, like Peter, you need to be more adventurous. Or perhaps you’re too serious, like Fredwynn, and just need to kick back a bit. But Dispatches From Elsewhere feels like it’s as disconnected as the title implies; as though each episode is a message from a faraway place featuring faraway people that are too formulaic and flat to believe in. Perhaps the show works as an invitation to go find your own scavenger hunt, but the incentive shouldn’t come from being frustrated with watching this one."
• Dispatches’ imaginative paths take us places and inspire questions we’re unlikely to reach as a passive TV watcher: "What would we say if we thought we could say anything?" asks Gwen Ihnat. "How much of the memories we frequently turn to are accurate? And if this is our only reality, what can we change about ourselves to get it closer to what we really want? Dispatches’ alternate take on reality not only offers a break from our own day-to-day world—it can also bring some new perspective with it."
• Dispatches is like watching a quartet of mostly cardboard cutouts figuring their way out of the world's fanciest escape room
• Dispatches is so weird it just might work
• Dispatches from Elsewhere is so mysterious that star Sally Field can't even describe it
• Eve Lindley is poised to be Dispatches' breakout star
• Even Jason Segel calls Dispatches weird: "I've used a lot of adjectives about the show," he says. "I think that challenging is one of them as well. I look at the show as there's a challenge of empathy presented at the beginning of each episode: Think of this person as you. And we present four people from different walks of life. Instinctively you're going to identify with one of them. But the goal of the series as it progresses is to, by the end, see yourself in all of the characters. I use a lot of unconventional storytelling techniques to kind of wake us out of this malaise of content that we have right now, where even when I'm watching something I want to watch, 20 minutes into it my mind is wandering, and maybe I'm checking my phone, and things feel like variations on a theme. One of the goals of the show as a whole is say, 'wake up. Here's something you haven't seen before and it's going to activate parts of your brain that are hungry for it.'"